


don’t you see i want my life

by amorremanet



Series: Right Where I Belong [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (Shiro & the OMC), Ableism, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Disabled Character, Chronic Illness, Complicated Relationships, Disability, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Drama, Family Issues, Friends With Benefits, Gay Disaster Shiro (Voltron), Gen, M/M, Meaning: Shiro is Pining over Adam but they aren't together, Minor Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Resentment, Shiro (Voltron) Has Issues, Shiro (Voltron) Has Multiple Sclerosis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 06:47:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15791160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: While the grandmother who helped raise him is dying, Shiro gets the chance to ask her any last questions that he might have. She meant to get questions about family history, but Shiro has something more immediate and far more personal in mind. The trick is getting himself to spit it out.“You shouldn’t swear off love or marriage so easily,” she says, trying to put a velvet glove on what she’s saying. Her tone makes Shiro want to punch a wall and break his hand. “I never thought that I would want to marry anyone until your Grandfather had a meltdown over me giving him one of my writing collective’s zines—”“And spent your whole first meeting trying not to stare down your tank-top. Iknow—”“You don’t even know what you want out of a relationship, yet—”“Oh, and youdo?”





	don’t you see i want my life

**Author's Note:**

> When this series gets into full swing, there _is_ going to be more to it than a bunch of moderately gratuitous and incredibly self-indulgent Shiro character pieces. For the moment, however: I love my favorite boy, and I had a pressing need to write out this particular piece of his story.
> 
> Also, angst and hurt/comfort. I really needed to write some of that. So, I did.
> 
> Title shamelessly lifted from “[Corner of the Sky](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu-TeLIL_lU)” from _Pippin_.

When Ryou heads out — acknowledging that he can’t argue with Shiro’s ostensible request for an In-N-Out Burger, since he skipped lunch and came right to the hospital as soon as he got home from Arizona — Shiro almost wishes that he hadn’t asked his brother for some privacy.

Dr. Murasaki Chiba Shirogane’s game this afternoon, Friday, May 13th, 2107? Answering any questions that her grandsons have left before her cancer finally wins out. Half-reclined in her bed, she’s woven so many stories-as-answers for everything that came to Ryou’s mind. It’s only fair that her Kashi should have a turn by now. Surely, he must have some request. It isn’t as though his mind ever stops working or allows him to relax.

As soon as the door nearly-closes behind Ryou, though? Everything that Shiro wanted to tell his Grandmother mushes together into wordless thoughts, infinitely tangling around each other and refusing to let him get a fix on them in either English or Japanese. He only had _one thing_ in mind, one question to ask — but with so much tied up in that _one specific thing_? It could count for hundreds upon hundreds of smaller, more easily digested questions.

Considering where he’s been and the standards of decorum that he’s used to, Shiro shouldn’t slump in his seat or splay his legs out at whichever stupid angle they decide on. He doesn’t kick Obaasan’s IV or her bed. He doesn’t get tangled up in any of the wires that attach her chest to different monitors — but Shiro should take more care than that. After all, he’s wearing his orange-and-cream cadet’s jacket and dark gray pants, folded into his heavy black boots. No one could mistake this as a fashion statement, not with the Galaxy Garrison’s influence. If Shiro had gone on the run to In-N-Out, there’s a not-insignificant risk of other patrons, probably little kids, deciding to ask him whether he’s a pilot or an engineer or what.

Even if he weren’t dressed this way, Shiro always represents the Garrison, wherever he is. Not as one of the enlisted service-people, either. Shiro’s an officer-in-training, due to finish all of his training faster than anyone else in history. Admirals Sanda and Dos Santos have called Shiro one of the best and brightest of his generation. They’ve already put his face on posters. As of January, they’ve started sending him to give recruitment talks at high schools around Plaht City. All this in mind, Shiro ought to conduct himself with the proper level of dignity and self-respect.

But his uniform can’t make him stop being what he is: a nineteen-year-old boy, slouching at the Grandmother who raised him and failing to meet her eyes, even though she knows that he knows better. Fussing with one of his jacket’s oversized cuffs instead of looking at her, even though she and Grandfather Takashi taught Shiro and Ryou better than this. Tonguing at his lips, even though he regularly tells Ryou and Adam and Yuki not to do the same.

“Are you feeling well enough?” There’s a summer sunshine smile in her tone. But her bony fingers drum on her weathered paperback anthology of Junji Ito’s manga shorts, and it sounds like someone summoning Shiro to his execution. He nods for her, but she hums like he’s the opposite of convincing. “Are you wearing your muscle-stimulators?”

Shiro nods. Peels back one of his sleeves. Holds up his arm and shows off the heavy, black bracelet that’s shackled to his wrist as if he’s under arrest. Even knowing that he should find an explanation for his current mood and behavior — if not that, he should at least respect Obaasan and himself enough to look her in the eye — Shiro can’t summon up the words, much less spit them out. Thankfully, Obaasan makes a throaty sound, the vocal equivalent of a nod, and lets Shiro know that she’s sufficiently satisfied with this display.

“Was it a difficult flight, then? The stress could have caught up with you slowly.”

Shrugging, Shiro rolls his sleeve down and smooths it out again.

“Hmm, I certainly _hope_ that you haven’t been pressing yourself too hard during your summer coursework.”

 _Yeah, right_ , Shiro muses but doesn’t let himself say aloud, lest he dig a hole too deep to pull himself out of. _I haven’t dropped out of the Garrison. You’ll always find a way to say that means I’m working too hard._

“Am I meant to _guess_ what you wanted to ask me so badly, Kashi?” Obaasan’s hand stills on her book and she huffs at him. “I suppose that it must be something of great significance. Given that you didn’t want your brother around while we discuss what’s on your mind.”

“Yeah, I wanted to tell you that I’m gay,” Shiro deadpans, buttoning up his cuff again. “But you’ve known since I was six and Ryou knew before anybody else, so? I thought it’d be tedious for him to listen to _again_.”

“But not so tedious for me?”

“Obviously not. Or else we’d be talking about, I don’t know? How cute Cadet West’s hair looked while running simulator drills the other day or something, I guess.”

“You seem quite taken with this boy. You’ve brought him up so often—”

“I mean, I like him? He’s my flight partner. And a very good friend. I’d _like_ to date him, if he ever wanted, but?” Quirking his shoulders, Shiro wilts even further. His body feels like he has concentrated dark matter in his veins. “That’s not even up for discussion. Adam doesn’t see me like that—”

“Hmm, that’s his loss, if true. He would be an idiot not to take an interest in you, Kashi.” Which would be more reassuring if she had any idea what she’s talking about, and if she wouldn’t sigh so wearily. “Whatever happened to Yuki, though?”

This gets Shiro to look up from his lap — and he immediately regrets meeting Obaasan’s eyes.

Earthy brown and knowing, there should be nothing wrong with his Grandmother’s eyes. They’re the same as Aunt Satomi’s eyes, and dreadfully similar to Dad’s and Ryou’s. There’s a warmth and an earnestness to their spark that most people who know Obaasan don’t know she’s capable of. They’d never guess that Murasaki Chiba Shirogane, the great poet, activist, and professor, could let her smile go so soft over the idea that her first born grandson might have broken off an alleged romantic relationship. Even some of her oldest colleagues would never see this emotional delicacy coming.

Not that Shiro can blame most people for that ignorance. By all accounts that he’s heard, Grandmother Murasaki has spent her entire hundred-and-six-year life fighting someone for one reason or another. She may not have served as any side’s combatant during World War Three, but she had to fight her parents about going to Stanford and then about marrying Grandfather Takashi. She had to fight for recognition in her department, had to fight to be heard within every feminist or activist group she’s worked with (even the ones that she helped found), had to fight for her own life, her husband’s life, their children’s and grandchildren’s lives.

At every turn, she’s had to fight to be taken seriously, rather than dismissed as a silly little girl who didn’t know when to sit down and shut up, or a shrieking harpy with nothing of value to say, or a woman too biased for anyone to bother with. No matter what other battles she’s needed to wage, she has waged that one above all others, struggled against all odds simply to be heard.

Even considering what he wants to ask her, Shiro can’t help the way his heart writhes at those thoughts. Can’t help identifying with his Grandmother, the lioness and consummate fighter. If anyone else in the family should _understand_ what Shiro’s been through… But first, Shiro needs to set her right about one point.

“Yuki’s a good friend, too — but that’s all he is. That’s all either of us _wants_ to be for each other.” Combing his fingers back through his hair, Shiro doesn’t allow himself to sigh. “The fact that we have sex doesn’t make him my boyfriend.”

“It _could_ do, though.” She shrugs, frowning as though she shouldn’t need to say this. “He’s a nice, Japanese boy, utterly unaffiliated with the Garrison—”

 _A nice, Japanese boy who isn’t with the Garrison and completely_ ** _hates_** _you_ , Shiro doesn’t let himself say. Curling one leg up onto the chair with him, he looks toward the window, rather than his Grandmother. The heavy, bulging clouds are the same shade of gray as his pants. If it doesn’t start raining before Aunt Satomi drags Shiro home, then it’ll definitely start before he turns in for the night.

Undeterred by her wayward grandson’s impersonation of a hedgehog, Obaasan goes on, “Your Yuki clearly cares for you. You care for him a great deal. The two of you are intellectually and sexually compatible—”

 _And without having met you? Yuki doesn’t want to be compatible with you —_ Shiro hugs himself around the shin, brushing his fingers up and down the inseam on his calf — _Because after I came home for your birthday last month? I laughed while telling him about how I got my first therapist. And he correctly deduced that_ ** _you_** _had something to do with how low I was feeling._

Tucking a lock of brittle, black-and-silver hair behind her ear, Obaasan sighs. “True, I wish I knew how you even _met_ this boy—”

“At a _gay_ _bar_ , Obaasan.” Huffing softly, Shiro lets his head loll back. “Last year on Bastille Day. I went to Plaht City’s Buddhist temple in the morning. Evening Mass at Christ the Good Shepherd after my summer classes. I got dinner with Uncle Mitch and Bennett. Then, I took my fake ID, and I went out to a bar in town, and I started flirting with Yuki because I wanted him to _fuck me_. Preferably until I couldn’t feel anything else but his cock inside me. I didn’t even think he’d want to let me sleep over, much less keep me as a friend, but…”

So much of that might call down the wrath of any guardian who’s closer to “normal” than Murasaki.

Great-Uncle Hiroshi, Grandfather’s younger brother, would no doubt be scandalized by Shiro speaking so openly about being gay, and then spew some of the garbage about Shiro and Satomi that made Ojiisan disavow him in the first place.

Uncle Kaoru, Mom’s eldest brother out of four, wouldn’t hack up slurs or homophobia. Instead, he would all too likely clear his throat, arch an inscrutable eyebrow, and drawl something like, _“Is it not enough, Takashi, that you have chosen to disgrace my sister’s memory by serving the same institution that as good as killed her? Must you also flaunt the fact that you refuse to find a good man? That you cavort with reprobates and lowlifes, despite knowing that she would not have wanted such a life for you?”_

Uncle Mako, next-eldest after Kaoru, would probably point out that Tenō Noshiko wanted both of her sons to be happy, and that she wouldn’t mind her Kashi’s _lifestyle choices_ as long as he stays safe about them (which Shiro does as much as he can). But that point in Shiro’s favor would only make the sting go deeper whenever Uncle Mako decided to turn on him.

 _“Continuing into the Garrison, however,”_ he’d say, staring over the silver wire-rims of his glasses. _“Knowing that space travel only exacerbates your condition, knowing that the physical and mental stress from it will dramatically shorten your expected lifespan, and becoming a pilot anyway? Your mother did not die young so that you could willfully do the same to yourself, Takashi — and think of your brother. Where will Ryou be left if you continue down this path? If you perish early from a slow-blooming suicide that could and should have been avoided?”_

Contrary and entirely, uniquely herself as ever, Obaasan gives Shiro a pensive hum, then tells him, “Fair enough. However, your parents might not be quite so impressed with your preferred way of coping with the anniversary of their deaths.” Barely audible, her fingers resume drumming on the cover of her book. “Not because you wished to have sex, of course. They would be concerned about you using sex to distract yourself, rather than truly enjoying, appreciating, and experiencing the encounters on their own merits—”

“Why can’t distracting myself be a way of _truly enjoying_ the sex?”

“Why can’t Yuki be your boyfriend, if Cadet West is too stupid to appreciate you?”

“Because he _isn’t_ , that’s why.” Wrestling a groan back down his throat, Shiro hugs himself like a straitjacket. He watches Obaasan’s book because the beat-up, yellowing-paged paperback can’t judge him. “ _You’re_ the one who taught me that sex and romance don’t have to go together. Why can’t I just have fun without needing Yuki to marry me?”

“Why can’t you consider the possibility that he might want to make an honest man of you?”

“Because he _doesn’t_. Because we’ve _talked_ about it. Openly, honestly, about _feelings_.” Shiro clenches his hand around his elbow and hopes he doesn’t scream. Hopes his hands aren’t trembling too noticeably, lest Obaasan decide that it’s related to his MS and not his feelings. “Yuki’s been upfront with me. I’ve been honest with him. Like _you_ taught me and Ryou to do—”

“Always so quick to dismiss the idea that someone might want you as a husband—”

“How am I dismissing _anything_ when Yuki and I have _talked_ about it?”

“Did you put aside your preconceived ideas about your own worth _before_ going into those conversations?”

“Who _cares_? It wouldn’t have made a difference—”

Obaasan cuts him off not with words, but with a sigh. Her hands go still. One flattens against the cover of her book while she curls the other up in the ghostly, anemic-white bed-sheets. She doesn’t cling to them, but she grips them tightly, as if making some kind of point that Shiro’s meant to perfectly interpret. Sure, he can guess as to what Obaasan might have on her mind. She’s objected to Shiro’s choices more strenuously than this before. How many times did Shiro get himself grounded for pushing too hard at the gym or at physical therapy, trying to surpass the Garrison’s requirements for applying to flight school and cadet training? How many times did he and Obaasan have it out because he didn’t want to meet some old colleague’s grandson for dinner and a movie?

Gripping onto his jacket’s sleeve, Shiro grinds his teeth. Tries to keep Grandfather Takashi’s maxim in mind: _“Patience yields focus.”_

“My situation with Yuki has nothing to do with any of the reasons why I talk to Dr. Hall every other week.” Shiro swallows thickly, half-choking on his own mention of his therapist. “Anyway, I’m only nineteen. There’s plenty of time for me to get married or not, even with me being—”

“If you feel that you do not _deserve_ that kind of commitment from someone because of your _illness_ —”

“It isn’t like that, Obaasan.” He thumps his head against the chair’s back-cushion. “I’m just not the marrying kind of gay. It’s fine for gay guys who _are_ like that, but since I’m not…”

That’s how Yuki put it, almost two weeks ago. After Shiro finished Professor Montgomery’s final exam and signed himself out, they got dinner and saw the new _Shadow-Dream Phantom_ movie at the Plaht City Megaplex. They’d planned to have sex because they like each other, and Shiro was done with coursework until the summer session started, and sex with each other is fun, so why not have it.

Once they got back to Yuki’s place, though, Shiro hadn’t felt as up to sex as he’d thought he would. He could’ve easily dealt with the pain in his back, since most of it was psychosomatic. Sleeping with Yuki might’ve even helped, getting Shiro out of his head, taking his mind off of the then-most recent news about Obaasan’s condition, and helping him feel better. But he’d been too tired to get further than making out on Yuki’s sofa. Not physically tired — not in any way that would make Shiro worry about a looming exacerbation period — but mentally and emotionally, Shiro had been too drained for anything.

Without questioning him or taking offense, Yuki let Shiro stay over and fall asleep beside him. He didn’t push for anything, simply held Shiro close. As Shiro drifted off, Yuki rubbed one of his pudgy, gentle hands along Shiro’s back and side. He het Shiro tangle up with him, nestle his lean, whipcord-tight abs against Yuki’s plush stomach, and rest his head on Yuki’s broad, soft chest without asking anything from Shiro. All he tried to do was get across the simple message: _“You are not alone.”_

Come morning, Yuki found Shiro sulking through another debate about whether or not he was going to take the acetaminophen-hydrocodone that his MS specialist had prescribed him, at the end of the previous week. When Shiro got up to fix them breakfast without explaining anything, Yuki looked up the names of the other medications Shiro had pulled out of his bag and the company who makes Shiro’s electro-stimulator bracelets. He put together Shiro’s diagnosis, then listened as Shiro admitted to how much he hated the opiates. Hated how they made him feel sluggish and itchy and nauseated, but did nothing for his pain.

 _“Which would make sense to Dr. Carter, if he’d bothered hearing me out.”_ Cracking an egg into the bowl, Shiro choked down the impulse to sigh. _“If the pain were physical? I’d give his idea more of a chance, like Ryou, and our grandfather, and Uncle Mitch, and my Mom’s brothers all want me to do. But I kept saying it wasn’t like that. It’s coming from… Y’know. Other things.”_

 _“Other things?”_ Arms folded over his chest, Yuki leaned on the counter, facing Shiro and the stove. _“Like your Grandmother?”_

 _“One of the first things she said when I called yesterday?”_ Shiro glowered at Yuki, trusting him to know that Shiro wasn’t upset with him. _“She heard I was meeting you, so she decides to go, ‘Has that young man of yours **proposed** to you, yet? And when can you bring him home? I want to meet my future grandson-in-law before I die, Kashi.’”_

_“Jesus Christ—”_

_“She is literally dying, and she still won’t stop trying to drag us down the aisle.”_ Beating a whisk around his mixture of eggs, milk, shredded cheese, diced vegetables, and seasonings, Shiro breathed a bit more easily. Not by much, but by enough to somewhat steady himself. _“Don’t know where I get off acting surprised. She’s only been doing things like this since I was six — when I first got diagnosed, I mean. Trying to set me up with someone. Get me married off. Find some nice, Japanese guy who can make a pretty little kept boy out of me.”_

_“But I’m not even your boyfriend. Neither of us is the marrying kind of gay, either—”_

_“Doesn’t matter. Not to her, anyway.”_ Shiro’s breath hitched in his throat, but he shrugged as if it was really nothing. As if he could convince himself that this wasn’t important to him, since Yuki wasn’t stupid enough to buy that. _“I guess this is better than her accusing you of only caring about me because you like the sex. But still. She could lay off, y’know? Considering that she probably won’t make it to Aunt Satomi’s birthday—”_

 _“Fuckhead, can you look at me? Please?”_ Yuki waited. When Shiro met his eyes, he didn’t condescend by faking a smile. _“Whichever deities, saints, or kami you’re most attached to this week? I swear by all of them that I will_ ** _never_** _do that to you.”_

_“Wait, never do which thing, though? I mean, I’m not—”_

_“I will never hurt you or break you down so much that you_ ** _resign_** _yourself to being a kept boy. Promise.”_ Brown eyes glimmering earnestly, Yuki didn’t look away from Shiro. Not even when a bird slammed into window that led to his apartment’s balcony. _“Whatever your Grandmother’s damage is? I like you_ ** _because_** _you’re a feisty, stubborn jackass with impulse control issues. Because you concuss yourself while trying to help some kids, then wonder why I won’t let you make me birthday cake or suck my dick. I like you because you’re a_ ** _fuckhead_** _—”_

 _“And because I can blow you so well, it makes you cry.”_ Dumping the eggs into Yuki’s pan, Shiro gave him a playful smirk. _“And not to sound like a jerk? But I look really good in leather pants. Or tight jeans. Or that mesh shirt you like—”_

 _“Mmm, that was only part of your initial appeal.”_ A small, wan smile twisted up Yuki’s lips. _“If we ever stop sleeping together? Then yeah, I’ll miss having sex with you. But I’ll still be grateful to have a Fuckhead Shirogane in my life. Exactly as you are,_ ** _not_** _as some kind of kept boy.”_

Thinking about that conversation now, Shiro’s heart flails like he’s getting electrocuted by his own guilt.

Blinking at Obaasan’s bony wrist, he has to summon up every ounce of resolve he has. Sighing right now could too easily let her know that he isn’t being completely truthful. No, he doesn’t feel like he’s the marrying kind of gay. Yes, he likes the way that he and Yuki do things, and the fact that neither of them expects monogamy. But if Shiro could ever find a guy who took an interest in him like that… If Adam or someone like him thought he deserved that kind of love… If Shiro could be selfish enough to dig them into that hole, even knowing what his prognosis looks like in the long-term, what he’d be dragging that poor, hypothetical guy into—

“You shouldn’t swear off love or marriage so easily,” Obaasan says, trying to put a velvet glove on what she’s saying. Her tone makes Shiro want to punch a wall and break his hand. “I never thought that I would want to marry anyone until your Grandfather had a meltdown over me giving him one of my writing collective’s zines—”

“And spent your whole first meeting trying not to stare down your tank-top. I _know_ —”

“You don’t even know what you want out of a relationship, yet—”

“Oh, and you _do_?”

Shiro cringes at his own voice. At how he sounds like such a _brat_ while his Grandmother is literally dying. Here they are, probably days off from losing her, and even though she helped to raise him, Shiro can’t repress his own feelings enough to tell her what she wants to hear.

He’s already started digging his own grave, though. He’ll only make things worse if he doesn’t finish. Obaasan will never respect him if he doesn’t screw his courage to the sticking place, if he doesn’t summon up the strength of conviction to stand by his questionable choices. If nothing else, then he needs to accept any consequences that this line of inquiry might call down on his head. Running from a fight that Shiro started on his own, when he didn’t need to do so? Spits in the face of everything good that Obaasan ever wanted to teach him.

Swallowing hard and clenching his jaw, Shiro forces himself to look Obaasan in the eye. “Maybe I _don’t_ know what I want out of a relationship yet, if anything. But you. Are not. _Me._ So, what makes you a better judge of what I want than I am?”

By the wall, Murasaki’s heart-monitor spits out a more rapid series of beats — until her deep, slow breaths steady her. It’s all her own breathing, too. Boarding the plane back in Plaht City, Shiro expected to find Obaasan intubated and unconscious, with a respirator keeping her alive only until he got here. Now, if not for the sterile, too brightly-lit hospital setting and simply knowing better, Shiro would think that Obaasan was close enough to perfectly healthy.

Setting her jaw, she tilts her head like a curious bird. She blinks at Shiro as if looking at her own reflection and wondering where a new blemish had come from. “Of all things, Kashi, you asked Ryou to leave us alone so you could ask me _that_?”

“No. I mean, it’s not like — that’s _related_ , I guess, but it isn’t exactly—”

“It sounds more important to you than anything else you’ve said so far today. Perhaps you can understand—”

“I understand why you think that, but it still isn’t what I really wanted—”

Shiro inhales sharply. Eyes closed, he holds that breath for a count of ten. Even with his lungs writhing in protest, he makes himself count off another ten seconds as he exhales. He forces himself to keep going like this, slowly and meditatively, and he hopes that this gets him to calm down. That this exercise in grounding himself helps him control his mouth, helps him avoid saying anything he doesn’t mean. Worse, he could say things that he _does_ mean but say them in ways that he’ll regret tomorrow—

“Why did everything change between us,” Shiro blurts out. Hunching in on himself, he balls his hand up in his sleeve so tightly that his knuckles could rip wide open, bones rending through skin. “When I was little, when I first got my diagnosis? Everything changed, and I just… _Why_ did it all change, Obaasan?”

She hums softly and vaguely, it sounds like she’s considering things, but then— “I’m not sure I know what you mean?”

“You don’t know what I mean?” Shiro’s voice goes tight. His throat quivers like a bowstring. “Are you _kidding_?”

When Obaasan shakes her head, Shiro can’t spot a lie on her face. Going wide, her eyes gleam with a sincerity that makes Shiro want to scream. Something hot and snarling claws at the inside of his chest. Makes his forearms itch like he has a plague of locusts pent up underneath his skin. Dimly, he wonders if it’s coming from his MS, the sign of a looming exacerbation. Doesn’t feel like it, though. Not enough for Shiro to hold himself back so he can think about it. If he doesn’t get Obaasan to respect him now, then he might never have another chance.

Watching her while she watches him, though, he feels like they’re back in her home-office. Like he’s ten years old all over again, and Obaasan’s going to offer him that Junji Ito anthology in her lap so he’ll think about anything else but—

“Going to space,” Shiro bites out, digging his heel at the linoleum floor. “You never objected to it until I got diagnosed with—”

“Kashi, honestly.” With a sigh, she pushes her hair off her forehead again. “You _know_ what your doctors have told you about your illness. What the Garrison’s staff has told you about space travel and the stresses of it—”

“But that _isn’t_ what I’m talking about—”

“It ought to be. Your lack of concern for your own well-being—”

“I’ve done everything that I can. Listened to every doctor, every _specialist_ —”

“And why? So you can fly dangerous missions into deep space, expose yourself to conditions that will only—”

“Those conditions would’ve been dangerous if I _hadn’t_ gotten sick, though!” Shiro’s hand leaps up so fast, he almost hits himself in the eye. Rubbing doesn’t make it sting any less. Doesn’t ease up on the way it burns, or take the quiver out of Shiro’s voice. “Before that happened, you _loved_ the idea of me going to the Garrison. Following Mom as a pilot. Adding to the legacy like Dad and so many other Shiroganes. You always told me I could do anything—”

“Kashi, please. There was never a time when I didn’t know your potential. Never a time that I thought any less—”

“‘Never give up on yourself, Kashi.’ That is what you _always._ Said.” Dragging his fingers down his cheek, Shiro forces himself to look Murasaki in the eye. Forces himself to keep breathing, even as his heart bangs against his rib-cage with a mind to burst right out of him. “‘The world is cruel and full of people who will never understand you. People who will oppose you at every turn, every step of the way, no matter what you do. That is why you cannot give up on your dreams. If you don’t fight for them, then nobody will.’”

He lets his hand drop to his knee. Digs in his fingertips. It doesn’t help. But at least he doesn’t flinch away from looking at her. He doesn’t back off from staring her down as he recites, “‘Most importantly, Kashi, you can never give up on yourself. But should you waver? Know that I will _never_ give up on you’—”

“And when did I?” Obaasan’s wrinkled brow knots up tightly. She gapes at him as though he’s slapped her — and something sharp and guilty twists in Shiro’s chest as though he has. “When did I ever stop believing in you, Kashi? Please, enlighten me. Because I cannot, for either of our lives, imagine what you mean.”

Even knowing exactly what he means, Shiro swallows thickly. Nearly chokes on what he’s feeling.

He sits up straight, as though the shift in posture might help him clear his head. Put words back on everything he planned to say. Something, anything. If nothing else, then perhaps Obaasan will take him more seriously if he isn’t half-curled up like a pillbug and half-sprawled all over, practically spilling out of the chair.

Except Shiro aches like he could double over, almost as soon as he’s upright. Feeling his back tremble, desperately wishing it were his MS, he doesn’t look at her. He only scoots closer to her bedside. Props his elbows up on her mattress so he won’t hang too low. Won’t strain himself too much. She whispers his name so softly that she needs to call three times before he hears her. Unsure what else she’s saying, if anything — unsure what else she thinks that she wants — he edges up the bed, nearer to her.

With her sharp, spidery hand ruffling over his hair, Shiro sighs. It all but bursts out of him, leaves him feeling hollow, and yet—

“I _remember_ when it all changed,” he says, head bowed and eyes closed. “Maybe not _right_ when we got my diagnosis? But close to it. All that doctor had to do was say that even the best and most aggressive treatments couldn’t send me into space, and _wow_. Suddenly, you were first in line to tell me, ‘Kashi, no. Kashi, this is ridiculous. Stop dedicating yourself to that dream, Kashi. Give it up already and focus on something else. Kashi, you shouldn’t. Kashi, you _can’t_.’”

Shiro clasps his hands together as Obaasan inhales deeply. No matter how heavy his voice comes out, he probably sounds petulant. Probably sounds like a kid complaining that he only got fifty-seven presents for Christmas and none of them was a unicorn or hippopotamus. She’s got to be furious. She might have him thrown out. She’ll hate him now, and disavow him, and tell everyone—

“But who took you to your appointments?” She huffs. Keeps combing her fingers through his hair as if she’s searching for something. “Who argued with your doctors when their treatments weren’t working for you? Pushed them to think outside the box and consider new approaches? Drove you to physical therapy until you could drive yourself? Taught you to cook, so you could make the best things for yourself—”

“You, and Ojiisan, and Satomi, and Naoko. You _all_ did. You fought the hardest with my doctors, but?” Shiro digs his fingertips at the back of his hand. His grip might bruise, but it keeps him centered as he asks her, “Who pushed me so hard toward Stanford when I already knew what I wanted to do with my life?”

“I only wanted you to give it more serious consideration. Instead of writing off the possibility—”

“Who decided to ask why I didn’t write her poetry anymore while I was in the middle of my practice entrance exams?”

“There’s no reason why serving the Garrison means that you should give up your creative pursuits—”

“Who pulled strings and used our family name as leverage, got me permission to follow Uncle Mitch and some of the first-year cadets around for an entire week, going to classes, running beginner-level drills, and doing everything that day-to-day life at the Garrison entails…” His eyes sting and well up with tears. He sighs. This is pathetic — but Shiro makes himself look her in the eye again. “Who spent _six weeks_ putting that together for me… all in the hopes that I would decide I didn’t want to be a pilot anymore?”

As she purses her lips, her free hand drums that call to an execution on her book. “Your brother exaggerated my intention with that—”

“Did Aunt Satomi? Or Uncle Mitch? Did _Ojiisan_ exaggerate, because when you weren’t excited for me after that visit? _He_ was the first one to tell me why. Even Aunt Naoko and Bennett — they have their own reservations about me being a pilot? But they told me what you were playing at.” Grinding his teeth, Shiro wishes the tears would get out of his eyes already — but they don’t. “I mean, as far as I can tell? Admiral Sanda and I are the only people involved who _didn’t_ know—”

“May I pose my own question, Kashi?”

Shiro nods. Doesn’t open his mouth, lest he start screaming.

Dr. Murasaki Chiba Shirogane croaks as she makes herself sit up straighter. She tucks any stray hair she can find behind her ears, clearing her view so she can watch Shiro to the best of her ability. She pushes her Junji Ito anthology aside. Folding both hands in her lap, she gives Shiro a look that feels like being put under a telepathic microscope. Like she’s staring straight into the pieces of his soul that Shiro does his best to hide, turning over every metaphysical rock and peering in every emotional hole, searching for an answer that she probably already knows.

“Do you remember what happened when you were first diagnosed?” Watching him closely, carefully, she struggles to keep her hands in her lap. She clenches them together as if she needs that anchor to keep them to herself. “After the doctor told you that he didn’t think you would ever go to space?”

“I remember a lot of things that happened back then, Obaasan,” Shiro deadpans, scrubbing the tears away and smearing them on his sleeve. “Which specific incident did you have in mind?”

“Not an incident, a spiral—”

“Oh my _God_. Seriously?”

“Quite seriously.”

“Do we _have_ to, Obaasan? Are we _really_ going to go over this _again_?”

When she nods, Shiro gives up the pretenses. Heaving a sigh that claws its way up from his bone marrow, he flops onto her mattress. Pillowing his head on his forearms, Shiro doesn’t bother trying not to whine. Fine, whatever, he sounds like a spoiled brat. If he ever has a right to sound like that, it’s now.

“I was six-and-a-half years old,” he snarls, nuzzling against his sleeve like that might make any of this more comfortable. “Mom and Dad were on their way to Jupiter. I fell over during a kiddie soccer match, in pain and spasming. I spent the next week in and out of the hospital. Mom and Dad wouldn’t get another chance to call home until Halloween and I missed them _why_? Oh, right, because I was getting an enormous _needle_ jabbed into my spine.”  


Shiro’s hand curls up into a fist. The blankets he grabs up are the only things that keep him from digging his nails into his palm. “And through all of that, Obaasan? This smug, patronizing moron with a degree from Johns Hopkins decides that I’m not being brave enough because I wanted to see Ryou after my lumbar puncture. He decides that I’m not acting grown-up enough because I was scared of the MRI machine.”

He tries to take a deep breath. Mostly, he kicks the floor. “Then, finally? He tells me that my one dream is never going to happen, no matter what I do, because now that we all know I’m _broken_? No one in their right mind would ever let me pilot anything.”

“He did not tell you that you were broken.” However firm her words are and despite the chill in her voice, Obaasan’s touch is gentle as she strokes Shiro’s hair. Which she shouldn’t be doing, when he’s acting this way, but if she insists, then Shiro doesn’t want to argue. “Had any of your doctors ever dared to tell you something like that, I would have razed their careers to the ground. I would have burned them out of every institution in the United States and salted the metaphorical fields. They would have been lucky to find jobs delivering pizza.”

“My only point is?” Shiro rolls his head toward her hand. “Sorry for taking that crushing disappointment a little bit hard—”

“Taking it ‘a little bit hard’ would have been infinitely preferable to wishing that you were dead.”

As she tells him so, Shiro knows better than to argue. He knows better than to think there’s anything that he could say in his own favor.

Still, he wishes that he _could_ defend himself. Wishes that he had anything more to offer than the heavy feeling in his chest — which, in turn, should feel like _something_ , or even like concentrated _nothing_. Instead, it mocks him, emptiness that aches with a reminder of how Shiro’s supposed to have feelings or more palpable sensations here. Aside from the stinging that returns to his eyes, anyway. That heat and that prickling feeling? They don’t help. All they do is remind Shiro of how weak he’s ever felt before, and how much weaker he feels now.

Obaasan’s fingers keep rustling through his hair. Knowing her, she has something more to say.

But before she can, Shiro’s mouth yanks the reins from his control: “If you didn’t want me to be suicidal, why did you keep pushing me toward a life I didn’t want? That I _still_ don’t want?” His heart stutters, writhing guiltily with each beat. Finally, enough tears well up that they spill onto his cheeks and Obaasan’s sheets. “Piloting makes me happy. Even if you didn’t believe I could do it, why wasn’t that happiness _enough_?”

“I didn’t need to believe. I’ve always known that you could do anything you set your mind to.” Obaasan’s sigh rattles on the way out of her throat. It’s heavy enough to nearly sound like a groan. “All that I ever meant? All that I wanted you to consider? Was that you didn’t _need_ to be a pilot to be worthwhile.” She swallows thickly, and it sounds like she might cry. “Something else could have made you happy too, Kashi. Something less likely to exacerbate your condition. Something less likely to make you die before your time.”

“There’s no such thing as dying before your time.” With the tears flowing freely, Shiro forces his head back up. Makes himself look up into those earnest brown eyes because he might not have another chance. “Don’t you understand? That’s why I have to be a pilot. For as long as I can, I _need_ this, Obaasan. I’m dying someday anyway, no matter what anybody does—”

“You might have longer than you think. With the right care and lifestyle—”

“What good is a long life if I spend every waking moment of it _miserable_?”

Despite his efforts at self-control — despite him taking the slowest, deepest breaths that he can manage — a sob claws out of Shiro. It sounds as cracked and broken as he feels. Must hit the right chord for Obaasan as well: she audibly gulps, and her eyes mist over, and one of her hands clutches the sheets like Ojiisan clings to his silver prayer beads. If she and Shiro don’t completely understand each other, then at least they’re crying together.

Shiro almost feels guilty as he says, “I don’t need anyone telling me what _they_ think I should do. What _they_ think will make me happy. Everyone else gets to decide that for themselves, they get to make those calls, people _listen_ to them, I just—” His breath shocks into him. More tears roll down his cheeks. “Whatever time I have, why can’t I make it happy on _my_ terms? Why don’t I deserve that too?”

“Please, I never realized — for you — it wasn’t _ever_ supposed to — I only wanted—”

A deep breath shudders into her. Obaasan lets slip a single tear. Her voice shakes more than he’s ever heard. Nothing could rattle her calm when she did the scripture readings at Mom and Dad’s funeral. Now, though, from just talking to her grandson, Murasaki’s breaths shiver and her words sound like they’re being filtered through an earthquake. As she cups a hand around Shiro’s jaw, her fingers tremble like they might never stop, not even when her time comes.

“I’m sorry, Kashi,” she intones, wiping his tears away. “But please, promise me—”

“Of course I’ll be careful, Obaasan. I always am. I don’t want—”

“Not that. It’s a good promise and you should keep it — but it isn’t what I’m talking about right now.” She nudges his chin up, locks their gazes on each other. “You are more than your rank at the Garrison. You are more than the missions you fly, or the medals you earn, or how many stripes you add to your uniform.” Squeezing his cheek, she whispers, “There’s more to you than the best pilot of your generation. Even when I’m gone, Kashi, _swear_ to me that you’ll remember this.”

Shiro nods without trying to shake her off. “Always, Obaasan. I promise I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, I can also be found over [on tumblr](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/) and on Discord (amorremanet#5500), for Shiro-love, Shiro-whump, hurt/comfort starring Shiro, and pretty much anything related to my favorite gay disaster.


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